Fluff

Chapter Twenty-Four - Skill Check

Sam was the one to carry the cash into their base. She dumped the bag onto their kitchen table, then emptied it out.

It was... well, not immensely impressive, but there were lots of wads of disorganised bills scattered across the table. "Wow," Emily said.

"Not bad, huh?" Sam asked with a sly grin. "But... this is before expenses. Things aren't free, and remember, we're only skimming off of this. We're skimming a lot but we do need to hand some back out."

"Right," Emily said. All of this was in service of a quest. Or several. Which actually reminded her. Emily turned to her sisters who were crowding the entrance to the kitchen and dining room. "Did any of you complete your quests?" she asked.

"I did!" Trinity said with a cheer. "I pickpocketed so much stuff!" Then she raised a garbage bag and dumped its contents onto the table. It was mostly wallets, small purses, a few crumpled up bills, some keys, and half a subway sandwich wrapped in wax paper.

Trinity gasped and swiped the sandwich away, one of her bodies running away with it.

Emily decided not to do anything about that.

"That's... six wallets, and two purses," Sam said as she swept her arm across the table and divided things up. "Right, let's count that money separately, I guess."

Emily nodded. "That's fair. I think... Teddy, you had a quest to intimidate people, right?"

"Yup," Teddy said, sounding immensely proud of herself. "I scared a bunch of them."

Emily couldn't recall anyone being scared around Teddy, though she did seem to have gotten a disproportionate number of people asking her to sign stuff. Also, she'd turned into a bear a few times, which she supposed had maybe frightened a few people.

In any case, Emily was just happy that Teddy had accomplished her quest. She glanced at Athena and Maple. "Athena?" she asked.

Athena nodded. "I got a quest to steal people's secrets. I didn't tell you about it, though. Is that okay?"

"That's fine," Emily said. "Though, maybe let me know, next time?"

"Okay!" Athena said.

And finally, there was Maple. "Ah, um, I got some points from giving everyone their gifts," she said.

Emily nodded along. That was more than fair. So, as long as they'd made a decent amount of money with their little scam, then Emily would have gained a few points for herself as well.

So she started counting. Teddy got bored with that soon enough, and Trinity followed her back to the living room. Maple and Athena, in the meantime, were eager to help. They stacked all the bills of a similar denomination together into little piles and emptied out the wallets they'd collected.

"What are we going to do with all of those keys and wallets?" Emily asked. The pile was a little daunting. There were cards and driver's licences and all sorts of stuff there that was probably important to people.

Sam grinned. "Well, how about we give them to the police?" she asked.

"Really? Like, anonymously?"

Sam shook her head. "I have a better idea. Hand it in, and claim that you discovered some thief's hideout or something while being all heroic and that you found all of these. Easy rep."

Emily snorted. That was just plain cruel, and definitely the kind of villainous thing that she didn't want to do. But... well, she did feel a little bad for the people who would now have to get new copies of all their cards. They even had a passport. "Yeah, we can do that," she said. "Next time I'm out in costume, we'll dip into a police department, tell them that there's some dastardly little bandit around, stealing people's wallets and any candy they have lying around."

Once the money was stacked by denomination, it wasn't hard to count the number of bills of each kind. Then it was just a question of doing a little bit of basic math on her phone. "Wow, this is just over four thousand," Emily said.

"Not a bad haul," Sam said. "Now, ideally to stop things from looking too suspicious, we should probably hand out about a quarter of this."

"That's fair," Emily said. "Three thousand for us then?"

Sam wiggled her hand in a so-so gesture. "About five hundred for expenses, then you need to pay your minions." She split the piles as she spoke, and Emily noticed that hers was growing smaller with every split. "Which leaves you with... well, just a smidge over two grand."

Emily wasn't going to complain, it was a decent pay for a week's work. She wouldn't have minded making a bit more, though.

They divided the money into a few envelopes, and a grinning Sam left with a hefty chunk of their winnings. "I'll get a receipt from the HRF and the shops. And I'll try to imply that the others got a bigger chunk of the money, I bet they'll buy it," Sam said before she headed out.

Emily wandered to the couch and flopped down onto it. She was burnt right out. It wasn't even early enough for supper, but she felt like she'd been running around all day long.

"Are you okay?" Athena asked as she carefully sat down next to Emily. The others were currently hypnotised by cartoons on the TV.

"I'm okay," Emily said with a small smile. "Just a bit tired."

Athena nodded, then she flopped onto her side, back pressing into Emily.

Maple noticed, of course, and she very carefully, and shyly, left only to come back with Emily's pillow which she tucked under her head. Then Maple climbed up behind Emily and wrapped one arm around Emily's waist. She didn't protest. It was actually comforting.

Still, there was a kernel of worry in her gut, about not doing anything productive. So for the first time in a while, she muttered the magical word. "Status."

Her progress wasn't fantastic at the moment. She only had two points to invest into any of her skills. At the same time, only three of her skills could be invested in. Centre of Attention, which she didn't love. Menagerie Family, which she didn't use nearly often enough, and Sisterportation.

That last one was probably worth putting some points into. She imagined that it might reduce the cooldown, which could be a life-saver later on.

Still, maybe something would come up? She suspected that if she ended up being caught in some trouble and managed to win, then she might be able to gain another couple of skill slots. That'd mean more options to invest the few points she had.

Out of curiosity, she opened up her sisters' status screens as well.

Teddy had a few things she could invest in as well. It wouldn't be a terrible idea. Emily made a note to tell her to do so. Unspent points wouldn't help anyone.

And then Emily realized how hypocritical she was being and subtly put her two points into her Sisterportation skill.

Her cooldown dropped from twelve hours to three. That was a lot more manageable. Still too much to really be of tactical use, but it was getting closer. If every point dropped the time by half... well, it would only be a few more points before the skill became useful in a fight.

"Wow, Athena, you have a lot of skill upgrade points," Emily said.

Athena nodded. "Yeah," she said.

"You don't want to use them?" Emily asked.

"My skills are pretty good already. I don't see the point in upgrading the ones I have. Once I get something really good, then I'll make it super good with the points I have."

"Right," Emily said. "Don't be shy to use your upgrade points though, we have them for a reason, right?"

"Okay," Athena said.

Trinity was accumulating some points too. And she had an impressive number of skills. Somehow, Trinity had a gift for stumbling into new skills.

And then there was Maple. Her youngest sister, and the one with the most catching up to do. But... well, she was getting there.

Things didn't seem all that bad, Emily thought.

***